Fatwas come a dime a dozen

Propagating 'Surya Namaskar' in Madhya Pradesh schools has not gone down well with some Muslims in the state and the Muslim clergy has issued a 'fatwa' against this exercise.

Actually, the word 'Fatwa' in its present form of understanding first came to Indian minds in 1988 when Salman Rushdie had come out with his book, 'The Satanic Verses'. Ayatollah Khomeini, the revolutionary leader of Iran had pronounced the fatwa on Rushdie, forcing him to go into hiding. Similar outcry was heard when 17 years later, a Danish daily came out with a dozen of Prophets caricatures, inviting a fatwa in return.

Prior to this, in November 2003, a Muslim organisation Jamait-e-Ulema Hind (JEU) had issued a fatwa against the singing of 'Vande Matram', India's national song. The reason given for this was that this encourages 'worshiping the mother, (in this case, Mother India) and worshiping is un-Islamic.

Now, while the issue is sensitive and close to the heart of the followers of a particular religion,which we must all respect, this latest fatwa coming in from Madhya Pradesh brings to mind some fatwas issued on issues that can be considered funny and crazy rather than serious. Sample these---

--Muhammad Al-Munajid, a cleric issued a fatwa against the popular cartoon character, the Mickey Mouse in 2008. Munajid called the character “ one of satan's soldiers” and decreed that all mice and their cousins be killed. The cleric from Saudi Arabia was a former diplomat at Saudi embassy in Washington.

Multaqa Ahl al Hadeeth, a Muslim internet forum had issued a fatwa against the emoticons, more easily understood as those smileys, the numerous ones that we use to exchange emotions through mobile phones. A per the fatwa, “Emoticons are forbidden because of its imitation to Allah’s creatures whether it is original or mixture or even deformed one and since the picture is the face and the face is what makes the real picture then emoticons which represent faces that express emotions then all that add up to make them Haram.”

Interestingly, a woman is not supposed to use it with a man not related to her because as per the fatwa, “ These faces are used to express how she is feeling, so it is as if she is smiling, laughing, acting shy and so on, and a woman should not do that with a non-mahram man (unrelated). It is only permissible for a woman to speak to men in cases of necessity, so long as that it is in a public chat room and not in private correspondence.”

And since we are talking of the women and her right to conversation, check this out- In 2007, there was an easy solution offered to Muslim women at work in order to facilitate their interactions with their male colleagues. Quoting Islamic tenets, a cleric, Ezzat Attiya stated that since Islam does not permit un-related or un-married men and women to be alone together, this problem could be sorted out for working women if an adult female breast-fed an adult male-co-worker as by doing this, she would become his foster mother!

Need we discuss this more? Yes, for there are other fatwa like diktats – The khap panchayats' diktats rule the roost when it comes to marriages of love-birds, going to the extent of killing them even at the cost of getting hanged themselves. The recent Raj Thakrey diktat to Marathis, not to buy veggies from the North-Indians ( particularly people from Bihar and UP) and the not so famous slamming and slapping of auto-rikshaw and taxi drivers from the north on the roads of Mumbai by MNS workers is another such laughable example of such an extreme diktat. In March 2010, the MNS was also credited with launching a campaign not to allow foreigners to work in the Bollywood. Not to be left behind were the Shiv Sena and the Bajrang Dal workers, who would decide how you should not be celebrating the Valentine's Day.

Not to be forgotten is Harbhajan Singh, who has been punished by the highest Sikh body, the SGPC for letting his hair loose in a fashion show, lest he be announced a 'Tankhaiya'. And the late President Giani Zail Singh as well as former union minister Buta  Singh are known to have cleaned shoes at the Gurudwara, all for a diktat!

And can we forget Kapil Sibal, who recently went all out to police the cyber-space, lest an alien netizen could harm the integrity of India in particular and of the Congress Party in general.

So, the fatwas do come, a dime a dozen, and in all forms, more political, less religious.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in the blog are that of the author and does not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of The Sunday Indian.)